Mass Effect Andromeda - The good, the bad, and the irksome

Let me just say, that there are a lot of things this game does well…such, as, combat, art design, sound effects, soundtrack and graphics. So, overall this is a solid game, and updates will undoubtedly make this game shine even more.

However, the issue I do have are juvenile, and, so, tells me that the original team behind ME went off to do other things. These are issues that were never an issue before.

Firstly, yes, animation is “a thing.” It’s everything from that distant creature whose animations are jittery and appear to be moving at 5 frames a second, thus, giving the appearance they are floating, or hopping across the terrain, to the cartoony facial expression that is more akin to a Dreamworks film about talking bears, rather than being related to previous ME titles. And let me point out that Addison’s creepy-scary, cold dead eyes make me think “psycho-killing ventriloquist puppet.”

Secondly, planetary scanning are pointless in this iteration. Who the flip cares about the “anomaly detected” being a damn crater? Or mountain? How does that qualify as an anomaly? And last time I checked, many solid bodied planets share these basic features. What happened to the scanning in ME2? Heck, shake things up a bit…why not procedurally generated space anomalies? Like crashed ships for outpost crew members, or material and/ or weapons? Or like in ME1, land on planets to seek out distress beacons?

Thirdly(and this is big), what the flippin-eff is the deal with the space suits? Why are space suits suddenly the equivalent to wearing jeans and a t-shirt? Let’s try to rationalize this. A “Space Suit” can withstand at least -250F and +375F…take NASA’s suits, for instance. However, this far into the future I would hope those figures to improve, greatly...especially if the Prothean tech advanced us so significantly in the story. That said, there should be no reason you cannot set foot on the surface of a planet that harbors trees, shrubs and animals(or other sentient life) without fear of frying, becoming irradiated, or freezing to death. This is something that irritates me about No Man's Sky.

That said, why am I in danger of freezing, as the helmetless Angarians are standing there telling me about swimming whales beneath the ice? And why is there water that shallow beneath the ice at all, if it’s so cold that a space suit cannot withstand it for more than 5 minutes? Is it liquid methane?

It's these overlooked issues that I take issue with; "what? I'm burning? Find shelter? That tree doesn't seem to be on fire...why is that not in fire? With it's pretty red leaves?"

The Trees not burning can be easily explained. They adapted to the environment. What cracks me up was the actual temperature. The temp is the temp here in Texas in August. Lol! They should've made it hotter.

I think we all mostly agree on the obvious things that have been issues since launch. Animations and bugs, ect. Nothing has been game breaking for me at all, but some of the stuff is def annoying. I do think that there is a way out there for them to make scanning for things like minerals a little more interesting and fun, but they have certainly yet to find it.

I'm still not a fan at all of the profile thing and I want my damn wheel back, but it is what it is. I also agree being able to save more often would be nice, but that's something I think many games have issues with.

The hot/cold temperature thing is kinda dumb when you break it down, but many things in many games/movies/TV shows are kinda dumb when you break them down. Sometimes you just gotta go with it and not take it so serious. It's just a game. Still enjoying the game overall.